Wednesday, December 1, 2010

About the author: Ben Parr is the Co-Editor of Mashable, as well as a tech entrepreneur, sci-fi author, and aspiring world changer. He first started writing for Mashable in August 2008. In addition to his duties at Mashable, Ben works on his own start-up ideas and recently completed his first sci-fi thriller novel, Desel. His previous experience includes project management for Facebook apps and content management in the web health space.[...]

Forget the rumor that Google acquired Groupon for $2.5 billion; the search giant is about to close a deal for the group-buying service for a whopping $5.3 billion to $6 billion, according to multiple reports.

It would be worth every penny.

The deal is worth $5.3 billion with an additional $700 million earnout based on performance, according to All Things D. The New York Times reports that a deal could be completed as soon as this week. With a price tag almost double that of DoubleClick, Google's biggest acquisition to date, there are still plenty of ways for this deal to fall apart.

Groupon pioneered the group-buying model through its deal-of-the-day business model. Launched in November 2008, the company has grown from an offshoot of ThePoint to a multi-billion dollar empire with thousands of employees worldwide. In April 2010, Groupon raised $135 million from Digital Sky Technologies, setting its value at over $1 billion.

If the Google deal does go through at a $6 billion valuation, that would mean that Groupon's value has grown by more than $625 million per month or more than $20.8 million per day. That skyrocketing value is simply mindboggling.